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We are Alyssa and Bri, two sisters who believe God wants more for women than we've been taught. Join us as we dive into the intersection of faith and feminism, learning together as we go.
To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word.
Speaker 1:And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.
Speaker 2:Hello, podcast listeners. Hello, fellow paedidians. That can't be right. I'm calling you that. That can't be right.
Speaker 2:Pididians. No. No. No. Piddle pedals.
Speaker 2:Oh, no. That's so much worse. Lily pods. I like that.
Speaker 1:It'd be cuter if either of our names was Lily. But
Speaker 2:Oh. Yeah. That'd cute. You know how some YouTubers, like,
Speaker 1:they do. They pick a name for their audience. That'd be so cute. But we don't our names don't what do we do?
Speaker 2:The pa didians. I think I clarified that at the beginning. Followers of Alyssa and Brianna of the We Are More podcast are classified as pa didians. Obviously. And I'll enter that into the internet.
Speaker 2:What part of the internet exactly? The internet. Mr. Google, Mrs. Google, Ms.
Speaker 2:Google.
Speaker 1:Are you gonna, like, make an appointment?
Speaker 2:Sure. I'll ask them. Okay. Well, now
Speaker 1:that you all know what you're called, you have a community now. Oh, that's You thought you had one before, but no.
Speaker 2:Okay. Talking about community, this I every I already told you about this, but I'm gonna share with the Pavidians. There is a brewery by us that I found out today. They host, like, a silent book club I'm so excited about this. That the local library puts on.
Speaker 2:And so they get a bunch of people together. I don't know if they're all reading the same book or just reading whatever books they want. But they go to the brewery, they get themselves a little drink, and they don't talk to each other. They just read in silence. And that sounds great to me.
Speaker 2:It sounds like the best possible version of a book club. I love that. You drink. You read.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You're technically socializing, but you're not, though. Yeah. I love it.
Speaker 2:If you really wanted to make a friend, you could sit by them and not talk. While they read their book. You can maybe ask what book are you reading? End of discussion. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't wanna know anything more about it than the name.
Speaker 1:I don't wanna know you. I don't wanna know what
Speaker 2:you look like, who you are. Your cow. In fact, don't even tell me what book you read. Just show me the cover. And then and then turn away.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I love it. I'm so excited. We definitely are doing this. It sounds great. I think that regardless of whether they're all trying to read the same book or not, we be rebels show up with whatever the crap book we feel like.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And just read. Just be like, oh, no. I'm not part of the book club. I just came here to read.
Speaker 2:This is my spot. I don't come here only on the third Thursday. I come here every Thursday.
Speaker 1:Every Thursday.
Speaker 2:And every Wednesday. And every Tuesday.
Speaker 1:This is what's keeping me sane.
Speaker 2:I'm an alcoholic and addicted to books.
Speaker 1:I mean, sure. What do you call
Speaker 2:people that are addicted to books? Us.
Speaker 1:Oh. Bedidians. Are you all addicted to books? Because we certainly are.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We've made the transition into book addicts. Full addiction. That's all I ever wanna do. This past weekend, I drove to the park.
Speaker 2:I did not get out of my car. It's cold in Michigan. I don't know if you know this right now, but it's like 50 degrees It's so cold.
Speaker 1:Rainy. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And it's mid May. It's that cold
Speaker 1:that like seeps into your bones. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But yeah. I drove to the park. I cracked open the windows. I put on atmospheric music, meaning the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1:That's so weird.
Speaker 2:I don't like Lord of the Rings. I just like the music.
Speaker 1:She's Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 2:And I read my book for an hour.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, I went to a birthday party.
Speaker 2:And I went home You did? After an hour. That sounds really nice. Actually, no. I stopped and got myself lunch.
Speaker 1:Our plans for this weekend also include books. I've found in the last, what, like two days, two brand new bookstores that I'm so excited about. I don't know when because this weekend is actually my anniversary. So we can't
Speaker 2:do it on Saturday. I didn't know. Frankly, I definitely forgot. But if you haven't figured
Speaker 1:it out yet, Nathan and I have definitely reversed, like, traditional roles. Nathan remembers everything, and I remember nothing. That's not just traditional roles.
Speaker 2:You just have never remembered anything.
Speaker 1:No. I never remember anything.
Speaker 2:You have one of the worst memories without having dementia that I've ever seen, heard, or experienced.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for that.
Speaker 2:You're welcome.
Speaker 1:But this Saturday is my twelfth wedding anniversary. So we can't go on Saturday. But we could go on Friday
Speaker 2:or on Sunday. Both good options.
Speaker 1:Both good options. So Or we could go
Speaker 2:on Monday because I also have the day off. I was gonna say I'll quit my job, but I have the day off anyways.
Speaker 1:Thrilling listening for all
Speaker 2:of you paedidians. Do you wanna know my work schedule? Do you wanna know our other life events? Our other life events include books. That's about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Speaking of books.
Speaker 1:Alright. Well, transitioned. It was great. It was a good transition song, Brie. Thank you.
Speaker 1:So today, we're gonna be continuing our talk about the book Women and the Gender of God, which is by Amy Peeler. And Brie and I have kind of split up the rest of this book. So she read parts of it. I read parts of it. It is a dense text.
Speaker 2:It is very dense. And not like thick.
Speaker 1:You know?
Speaker 2:She's not a thick book. No. She's not one of those fantasy novels that's 782 pages.
Speaker 1:She is not that.
Speaker 2:But she is overwhelming.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think the research in this is so amazing. Mhmm. And what she's put together, it just, like, blew me out of the water. But also, my brain hurts.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. So I was just listening to it mostly on Audible. I was just listening to the audio version. And I don't necessarily recommend that.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Because it's so dense Yeah. That you miss a lot. So I recommend having, like, a physical copy and then listening to it. Mhmm. I wouldn't just read it.
Speaker 2:You need someone else to read it to you.
Speaker 1:That's what I was doing. For a lot of these, like, heavy research books because that's what I do with Beth's books as well, her very best friend. Mhmm. I listen and read because it it just I don't know. It keeps you on track.
Speaker 1:It keeps you going. But then to have the physical copy, then you can highlight. You can make your little notes, whatever you need to do. You can annotate it. No.
Speaker 1:I am not an annotator. Those
Speaker 2:people are Do annotate it Because that's what all the book talk girlies
Speaker 1:are doing. And the book talk girlies overwhelm me. They have a full coloring sheet on every page.
Speaker 2:I will say I'm confused what they're annotating in, like, like romance novels. Like an Emily Henry romance novel.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Or anything really that's not research? Research. Yeah. Non fiction. What are you doing?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Like, I will say, not so much now, but when I first started getting into reading, I was highlighting the things that I thought were funny that made me laugh out loud. Because if I were to share that book with someone else, I want them to experience my joy.
Speaker 1:But here's the thing. I have read several of those books that you have done that to. And it's like three lines throughout the entirety of the book. You're not, like, highlighting every page. And some of these girls, they've got, like, cute little swirly underlines, and they're hearting everything.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, how do you get through a book?
Speaker 2:Or have you seen their they, like, journal, and they will go to a printer. Who owns a printer anymore? And they will print out little tiny, tiny pictures of the covers of the books that they're reading
Speaker 1:I have seen that. For like,
Speaker 2:this is my this is what I read in April or whatever now. Teeny tiny little pictures of these little books that they read. And it's very impressive.
Speaker 1:And overwhelming. They're putting in the work.
Speaker 2:Alright. We need to talk about this book. Okay.
Speaker 1:We're we're getting very off track.
Speaker 2:So last week, I think
Speaker 1:we just got through, like, chapter one. And I'm we're not gonna go chapter by chapter today because we would this would be a 75 part podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think it's more big picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Brie did the first couple of chapters, and I did the last couple of chapters. So we'll kinda talk through that. I have a surprising amount of notes that are sort of really in-depth. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I'm scrolling through them now, and Brie gets to look at them.
Speaker 2:It's a lot.
Speaker 1:It's a lot.
Speaker 2:That's single space.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So sorry.
Speaker 2:I wrote mine down. Alright. Let's read Brie's. Well, I mean, last episode we talked about the introduction and chapter one. Excuse you.
Speaker 2:So sorry. So the next chapter mostly focuses on women's bodies. Specifically Mary's body that brought Jesus into the world. And how throughout history, there's been, like, a tradition of thinking that women are somehow unclean. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Yep. They're disfigured. They're lacking certain parts. Mhmm. And that makes them not worthy of leading in church or x y z.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. You know, just less than. Right. And I think in this in the second chapter, she mainly argues, here's why women's bodies are perfectly clean and perfectly fine and worthy of leadership. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:In the Jewish tradition, women are considered unclean during their period and then during, like, once they give birth. Mhmm. And I think there's a longer period of being considered unclean if you give birth to
Speaker 1:a girl. I think that yeah. I think you're right. Compared to a boy.
Speaker 2:But during that period of uncleanliness, you're not allowed in the church or, like, in the Jewish tradition, it would be the synagogue. Right? Mhmm. So her argument is because Jesus was born from a woman and Jesus is God Mhmm. He was with her during that whole time Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Of her uncleanliness period. Mhmm. So there is no time that Jesus can be separated or God can be separated from a woman. Mhmm. He wasn't afraid to be born of a woman.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We forget that God can do anything. And I think that makes it a little easier for us to explain it away to be like, well, I mean, Jesus had to get to us somehow. So of course, he was born from a woman because being born from a man would be tough.
Speaker 2:But God can do anything.
Speaker 1:But God could have just magicked him here. Like, he didn't need to be born.
Speaker 2:He couldn't be in an egg. In a cave.
Speaker 1:Probably not that. I mean, I suppose anything. But no. But like, he could have just poof. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You know, like, he spoke the whole world into existence. You're telling me he can't speak Jesus onto the planet. Like, I think he could handle that.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And yeah. So the choice to have Mary be involved, to have her be this critical part
Speaker 2:of Jesus' Of bringing God to Earth so that he could complete his mission so that we could have access to God. Right. I think that's huge to give that responsibility solely to a young woman.
Speaker 1:I mean, she was probably like a young teenage girl.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Like, yeah. I think we did a whole episode on her at
Speaker 1:one Yeah.
Speaker 2:She's,
Speaker 1:yeah. Young to teens.
Speaker 2:And then she goes on to talk about how some people think that women can't I'm trying to find the words, like, give Eucharist.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Yep. So that's when for those of you out there that aren't familiar with churchy terms, it's communion. But that word in particular is usually used in the Catholic church.
Speaker 2:Like, the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ. So it's represented through, like, bread and juice or bread and wine. Wine. Right.
Speaker 1:Unleavened bread. Yeah. And usually that's, like, in the Catholic tradition, it's only given by the priest. Mhmm. In Protestant Christian circles, it's not as, like, regulated, I think, as in the Catholic world.
Speaker 1:But it still generally is, like, prayed over by the pastor and whatever. And so if your church doesn't have female pastors, then it would be the same concept that women cannot.
Speaker 2:And she was saying, like, why wouldn't they be able to do that when literally the body and blood of Christ came from a woman? She fed him. She birthed him. She clothed him. Spent so much time with him.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Of course, a woman would be able to do anything else Mhmm. That a man could do because God trusted this woman with his physical body.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. I think in our Mary episode, we talked about how, like, as Christians, we tend to be afraid of talking about the real birth experience that would have happened for Mary and for Jesus. And we, like, we gloss over it like, oh, it was this perfect situation. And she had no pain and whatever. Woman gave birth in not a barn.
Speaker 1:We talked about that. But like Mhmm. Amongst animals. And she was giving birth without any pain medications. Those of you who have had children, you know.
Speaker 1:Even if you had pain medications, you had a while before them. So like, you know. We don't wanna talk about that like nitty gritty of it. And I think it does play into this too, where the nitty gritty of it makes it very woman centric.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It really focuses on Mary as a person instead of glazing over Mary and talking about the wise men and the shepherds who likely would have been men. Mhmm. Like, kind of like skipping her part of the story.
Speaker 2:Well, like, around Christmas time, we I don't know if, like, whitewash is the right word, but we just make the story so clean. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You
Speaker 2:know? The story just seems so more simple Mhmm. Than getting into the nitty gritty, like, she was pregnant and riding a camel. Right. Or maybe, maybe a camel.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Whatever. But in the desert, in the heat. And also, of the time, like, she it was it was complicated because she was pregnant and not with Joseph's baby. Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:And how does that work for her? And yeah. It's tricky.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And we just I you know, it's fine to simplify things sometimes. Like, if you're just telling the story to a five year old. Like, you might not wanna get into the nitty gritty of birth. But eventually, as we're adults, like, can't we talk about this full story?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And it absolutely plays into let's not talk about the woman's contribution to this story. Because that's what we do with every bible story. Yeah. I mean, even look at the story of Deborah in the bible or Big Deb.
Speaker 1:Big Deb. We try and focus that story on Barack instead. And if you haven't heard us talk, we talk about story and Deborah all the time. But she's in Judges. And we talk about Barack's contribution, even though that story is so intrinsically about women.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Like, you've got Deborah, you've got JL. But like, we we try so hard to erase them Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Throughout time. The next chapter talks about how Gabriel came to Mary. And I think we talked about this a little bit in the last episode, but how Gabriel came to Mary and was essentially asking her if this was okay, if she would consent to giving birth to Jesus, the son of God, without any man. Mhmm. Any man's contribution.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Just, hey, by the way, can you and you alone birth out the son of God?
Speaker 1:And potentially raise him by yourself. Because she doesn't know at this point if Joseph is sticking around.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Amy goes into how Mary didn't just like blindly say yes. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:She asked a lot of questions. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:She does, though. She has, like, a conversation with Gabriel. And I love that part of the story that gives her agency.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:As opposed to and I think we talked about this last week where you've got some of, like, the Greek myths and things like that where women are forced into these situations.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that's not the case here if you look deeply into it. Like, there are definitely people who have seen Mary as a victim in this situation. Mhmm. But if you really look at the story, she has the opportunity to say, no. I'm good.
Speaker 1:And there's no threat against her.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Like, she could have just walked away. She wouldn't have been part of this story, but that would have been okay. Mhmm. There would have been someone else, and that would have been Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's really important to notice in the text that it says, like, pretty much, if you do say yes, here's what will happen. You will give birth to a son. You will name him Jesus. He will be, you know, Christ, the son of God. The son of God.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't say like, this has already happened to you Right. Against your will, against your consent. They're waiting. Gabriel, God is waiting for her to say yes. Right.
Speaker 2:And then once she says yes, then that happens. But he doesn't just do things to her without her consent and her willingness.
Speaker 1:And this is kind of an offshoot on that. But what I like about that is this concept of, like, I don't know about you guys. But I grew up in churches where it was like, God has a perfect plan for you. And the moment that you step off the path, you're on the wrong path, and you can never get back to the main path and screw you, actually. And that was always really hard for me because I was like, my gosh.
Speaker 1:I have to make every decision the right way. And if I don't, I'm off the path. Like, I'm
Speaker 2:not like a little red riding hood. You're picking your flowers while your grandma's getting eaten.
Speaker 1:Exactly. That's exactly it. But this story shows me that there's not just one perfect path.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Mary said yes. And so that was the path that she went on. And that might have been, like, a great path for her. But if she had said no, God wouldn't have left her.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:He wouldn't have said, well, you didn't do what I wanted you to do. So see you. Bye. And you're gonna be forever cursed. No.
Speaker 1:She could have said no and married Joseph still and lived her own life.
Speaker 2:I think that's super important to realize, like, God gave us free will. Mhmm. And he's gonna work with our free will. Right. So it's not just one path.
Speaker 2:There's not one ultimate ending that we're trying to get to other than heaven. But, like, we have agency. We could pick yes or no, and he's gonna continue to work with us.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if she would have said no, her life would have still had value and purpose. It would have been different, but he still would have worked with her.
Speaker 1:Right. And I think the conservative Christian church, as at least the ones that I grew up in, it's almost as though, like, God gave you free will, but he's going to punish you for
Speaker 2:it. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:God gave you free will, but if you exercise any sort of free will, then he's gonna leave you out in the dust.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:No. God gave you free will, and God will understand when you make different decisions. And not everything is right or wrong. Not everything is good or bad.
Speaker 2:And also, God isn't working on our timeline. Mhmm. He can see all of the answers that you could possibly decide Mhmm. At once. He's seeing your endgame and your beginning and your middle all at one time.
Speaker 2:So yes, he knows what is gonna happen to you, but you still get to make those decisions.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah. I that I never like, literally until this moment, I hadn't kind of thought that through. Because I've always had that thought in my head of like, there's a perfect path. And I don't agree with it anymore, but it's always, you know, that little thing in your head.
Speaker 1:Like, that was the perfect path. And I ran away from it when I was eight, you know, because I didn't do what
Speaker 2:my mom told me to do.
Speaker 1:And now I'm just in
Speaker 2:big trouble. Where's the path? I've lost the path. It's 12 miles away. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Anyway. So that's chapter three?
Speaker 2:That was chapter three. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'm just gonna kind of overview the last few chapters because, again, if we go into every single one, we're in big trouble. But I also do have three pages of notes. So my version of overview might be very different from your version.
Speaker 2:My version of overview was like, big picture, this is what she says in this chapter. Big picture, this is what she says in this chapter.
Speaker 1:I will do my best to big picture many of these points. But I apparently am fairly detail oriented. Who knew? You're long winded. I am long winded.
Speaker 2:That's why we have a podcast. Yeah. Because you're long winded. And I'm not.
Speaker 1:So chapter four is called God is not masculine. She talks a little bit about what masculine looks like and some different philosophers and some different biblical scholars, if you wanna call them that, or big name pastors.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking about a TikTok account. Oh, no. That he goes, if your house is on fire, let it burn. Don't call the fire department. That's weak.
Speaker 2:Be a man.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's funny, but it's not totally off base. It's wild. If you look at, like, the manly TikToks or the manly podcast or something. Like, it's wild. So she talks about how most biblical scholars don't believe that God would be traditionally male.
Speaker 1:We've talked about that. We talked through that in the last episode as well. However, the reason that a lot of these, like, big name pastors or some of the biblical scholars, things like that, will say, but we should still think of God as male. Even though they acknowledge that it doesn't make sense that God would be male. We still should think of him that way.
Speaker 1:It's because he has a masculine feel that comes from John Piper. God has a masculine feel. And so she goes into kind of why they might say that. And part of
Speaker 2:that is what you were talking about. How, like, historically in ancient traditions, women's bodies were viewed as messed up. Beth Allison Barr goes into that in her first book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood. Like, literally, historically, they thought that women were missing a piece. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And so therefore, they're
Speaker 1:wrong. Yeah. Like, we were deformed men. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So she says that it in this case, it's like women were viewed as passive and men were viewed as active. Like they acted upon things. And therefore, because God is, you know, someone that acts upon things that created the world, that put all these things into motion, that that means that he has a masculine feel. Oh. They also thought that men were more naturally inclined.
Speaker 1:And I say thought, this is like still a still a belief. Like you would still hear this. It was thought that men were more naturally inclined to reason, justice, self control, wisdom, and courage.
Speaker 2:And women were mentally weak. Women are just we can barely turn our heads to breathe.
Speaker 1:It seems that way. And so in the world where this is true, this is not our world where it's true. But if you really believe this crap, then it does kind of make sense that God has a masculine feel.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because think of the flip side. If men are more inclined to reason, women are more inclined to what? Chaos? Like lack of thought? Or not inclined to justice, inclined to passiveness, things like that.
Speaker 2:Well, think men stereotypically think they're more inclined to power. Mhmm. And that to them equals God. Yeah. So God and power must equal man.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And that is definitely a huge thing that she talks about. She talks about how it's a myth and it doesn't make any sense. Like, we can look at now, now that women have more agents agency, now that women have the ability to move past the men in their
Speaker 2:lives Yeah. See you.
Speaker 1:We can see that that's not the case. That it was that women were being oppressed. Mhmm. And so, of course, you were gonna see them as weak because you knocked them down to the ground. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You told them that their God given calling was a lie. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that they shouldn't pursue anything more than what benefited them the most. Right.
Speaker 1:She talks about how even though clearly, clearly this is all insane and a myth, it still holds. Because Mhmm. To this day
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Men still think of themselves like this. Now it might not be said exactly like that. It's gonna be said in a different way. Because I've heard so many times, well, it's not that it's not that one gender is in power over the other. It's just that their callings are different.
Speaker 1:That's what they'll say to be politically correct now,
Speaker 2:but it boils down to this. Well, you had said earlier this is kind of a little bit off topic, but you had mentioned earlier that there was a study done where they asked, like, a hundred men if they felt like they could land a plane during a crisis. And how many said yes?
Speaker 1:I don't remember the exact percentage, but it was like an overwhelming majority of the men said, absolutely yes, I could land a plane.
Speaker 2:And then they asked the same question to women. And like, 93% said no. Yeah. Like, obviously, no. Clearly, no.
Speaker 2:Because I'm realistic. Right. And I know that I can't. I think just so many men are conditioned to be delusional. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You're not gonna be able to land that plane. I don't you can barely drive a car without getting angry. You're not gonna be able to land that plane. But men are conditioned to believe that they can do anything Mhmm. Whereas women are not.
Speaker 1:She talks about how God is the source of life.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And we talked about that in the last episode about how, yes, technically, God supplied the male part of making Jesus. But that he could have just as easily supplied the female aspect to it. Like, it wasn't, you know, one over the other. And then she said, because masculinity is a concept that's projected upon God, not that God is, but because we've projected it upon him. We've given him these attributes and not these attributes.
Speaker 1:We've given him stereotypically masculine things. And we've taken away the stereotypically feminine things. And it's not found in the text. That that becomes dangerous to everyone. And people suffer because of it.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Not just women suffer. Men suffer too. Yeah. Because imagine being told.
Speaker 1:And I mean, I I'm saying imagine. If we have any male listeners out there, I'm not sure how many we Men? But if we do, I'm sure you felt this. Where you have to be all of those attributes that I listed before because that's what God is and God isn't sensitive. God isn't, like, all of these stereotypically feminine things.
Speaker 2:What a tremendous amount of pressure to be told that you have to be not emotional. You can't show any emotions. You have to provide 100%. You can't show any sign of weakness and not be supported in any way by your partner or by anybody. I just think it's unrealistic.
Speaker 2:And exhausting. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It also talks about how god is called father, and that kind of imbues a role upon fathers that isn't there. That they're more active in the creation of their children
Speaker 2:than they actually are. I wanna make something very clear from a woman who has not birthed anything. They're not the men are not doing a lot in the birthing process.
Speaker 1:This is a quote.
Speaker 2:You just stayed silent for too long. I'm gonna handle that.
Speaker 1:This book gets a little awkward because she's really intently talking about, like, the conception of Jesus. It gets uncomfy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. She's she talks about the viscosity of different fluids for
Speaker 1:a while. It's good research, but it is like, it's something that is uncomfortable to read. And part of that is because we're just so weird about
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:All of these topics. But It's a little weird. It's weird. It's a little weird. But here's a quote that she gave, And I don't have written down who said it, but it's in chapter four.
Speaker 1:So you can look at it. It says and this is a quote from someone else. It's not from Amy. It says, fathers cause a child, but do not grow a child in their bodies. So too God causes creation, but creation did not proceed from the body of God like a child is birthed from its mother.
Speaker 1:So it gives men this really inflated role Mhmm. In the birth of children. They're not doing that much.
Speaker 2:That's why I'm saying, give them a watermelon. Tell them to shove it up their butt while it pushes back out. Is that too much? It might be. Is that too much?
Speaker 2:I'd like to see them try.
Speaker 1:I just don't know. I don't know how to recover from these things that she says. So we're just gonna keep moving forward. Then she talks about Jesus. And she quotes something from Katherine Tanner, who I believe is a researcher.
Speaker 1:And she says, the potential for gender bending use of gendered imagery, a father with a womb she's talking about Jesus here in particular. And Jesus prior to coming down to earth. So like, how did Jesus start to exist? So God with a womb might very well present the best hope for avoiding theological reinforcement of male privilege. So if you can think of the fact that Jesus existed prior to coming down to earth so how did Jesus exist prior to coming to earth?
Speaker 1:If we assume that he is the son of God. And again, the trinity is a whole very complicated concept.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But if we assume that he is actually, like, the son of God, then he had to come to exist somehow. Right? So then either there's some birth story there, which is real weird, or God fulfilled both a masculine and feminine role in that scenario.
Speaker 2:So if God can do that, it's just mind bending.
Speaker 1:It is. It's a little
Speaker 2:mind bending. It's not for us to understand.
Speaker 1:I will grant you, like, it's really I don't think anyone understands it.
Speaker 2:But also, you birthed your own son. He's also you. And then there's a ghost involved.
Speaker 1:It's confusing. So then she talks about how making God masculine because you say that he is the initiator, because you say that he is active in creation, because you say he's one that wants justice, whatever, like all of these attributes that we've talked about, if you turn God masculine simply because of that, then again, it means that that's what men should be. But then you have to move it a little further, like push the dial a little further. So then you could say, God is always in control. Therefore, men should always be in control.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. It turns them into mini gods. Right? Mhmm. Now they have to not only fulfill that role, but they take on attributes that should never be given to humans.
Speaker 1:So if God is in control because men in theory emulate God, then they should be in control. You have to push it a little bit further and see the damage that that does. It turns women into more weak beings because in theory, we're further from what God is. Mhmm. We're not as like God.
Speaker 1:And I think that's exactly what a lot of men in the church are trying to do. Oh, absolutely. If we are weaker, if we are further from God, then it of course, they have to be in control because our weak little minds just can't handle it.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So if we can turn this narrative around and we can say, God is neither masculine nor feminine Mhmm. Then that rebuts a lot of a lot of the traditional stereotypes. And we can, like, move forward really quickly Mhmm. Instead of having to pull apart all these little verses and whatever, which we certainly can do. But this would we would get 20 steps forward.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Yeah. By saying that women are just as similar to being close to God as men are. Mhmm. We both reflect God.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Why can't we both move forward together in this thing that we call life? This little thing. This little play that we call This little thing.
Speaker 1:Another really interesting quote that she has here. She says, masculinity, as gender studies has taught, is something one achieves rather than a gender into which one is born. Possibly, anyone could be masculine like the masculine god. I thought that was fascinating because you're not talking I mean, even if you have a very traditional view of men and women, masculinity is certainly something that can be achieved or not achieved by men or women. It can be taught.
Speaker 1:There are men that would not be considered traditionally masculine. There are women that would be considered traditional traditionally masculine.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I can name probably 10 women just off the top of my head that are very powerful, very high achieving, things that you would stereotypically consider more masculine traits. And like you just said, there are plenty of men in my life too that would not exhibit exclusively traditional masculine traits.
Speaker 1:And so if that's true, if it's something like, because you're not talking about gender in this case, you're talking about character traits. Mhmm. And so if it gets something that can be achieved rather than something that you're born as
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Then again, that negates the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Let's just encourage everybody to be powerful in their own right.
Speaker 1:High achieving. If these are the traits of God, we all have the capacity to get there.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I mean, not obviously not all the way there. But like, to emulate that. Mhmm. So why wouldn't we be encouraging everyone emulate God? Because power.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Because they don't want everybody to be that way. Mhmm. They want some people to stay put, stay where they're placed, and not go any higher because that intimidates them.
Speaker 1:Well, when you think about it, power, if all you're out for is power, it's not very effective if you don't have anyone to be powerful over. Yeah. You can be in charge. But if you're in charge of no one Just yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because everyone else has agency of themselves. Well, then your power just doesn't really count. Mhmm. So the more people you can have it's like an MLM. The more people you have under you, the better you're doing in theory.
Speaker 2:And they would never say that. Right? They would never say that they're out for power. They would always say they're just trying to follow God. I'm just trying to follow God.
Speaker 2:But at the end of the day Mhmm. If you feel threatened over a woman trying to also follow God Mhmm. You're not following God. Right. You're following your power.
Speaker 2:And that's what I said. And that's
Speaker 1:what I meant. Well, an elephant's faithful 100%. So then the last thing that and there's so much more to this book, but the thing that I kind of wanted to wrap with
Speaker 2:oh, please do. Oh, no.
Speaker 1:I will not be doing that. We talked about this last week also. Like, what do you call God then if you're not calling him father? If you're not calling him masculine?
Speaker 2:You obviously hate soul sister.
Speaker 1:That's not it. That's not it. So she actually argues for continuing to call God father. And here's why. I think it's really interesting.
Speaker 1:And I don't think there's a wrong answer here.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:If you were to start calling God mother or use feminine terms for him, like, don't think I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Mhmm. I don't think God will be offended. No lightning bolts are likely to come from this guy at you. I make no promises.
Speaker 1:But likely, I think you'll be okay. But she argues that the reason that she thinks that we should call God father is not because he's more masculine, but because and I know I'm using male pronouns also, but it's just habit at this point. It's because that's what Jesus called him.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And the really interesting thing that she says because then that argument becomes like, well, why would Jesus have called him father if he wasn't a man? She says, what if father is not a general reference but a proper name? What if he called him father because that's his name to Jesus? And then she also talked about how Jesus has a mother. Right?
Speaker 1:Like Mary is his biological mother. Mhmm. He does not have a biological human father. So because God, the father, is his parent figure Mhmm. And he already has a mother, he would call God father to fill in that parental space.
Speaker 1:Because he already has a mother. So it doesn't make sense to then be like, mother god, mother Mary. Like, that's complicated. So because Although,
Speaker 2:we could really meddle some things up.
Speaker 1:I mean and again, I don't think there's a wrong answer here. This is simply Amy's argument
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Of like, this is what Jesus called God. And therefore, emulating Jesus is always a positive thing.
Speaker 2:Like I think at the end of the day, as long as you're talking to God Mhmm. I think that's what matters. Yep. It doesn't matter what you call them. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And if you're talking to them, to God in love, in anger, in frustration, in awe, all of those are acceptable Mhmm. Because you're talking to God. Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think getting wrapped up in God is one gender or the other.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:In your personal life, it adds a level of complication you don't need.
Speaker 2:I think it's just so much simpler to be like, it's just God. Mhmm. It's just God. They're big. They're strong.
Speaker 2:Personally,
Speaker 1:I love the idea of thinking of God as sometimes father and sometimes mother. Like, that works really well in my mind because, like we said last week, like, I can relate to God on a different level if I can see him with traits that look like mine.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You know, if the god above that created the world also looks like me
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Which is a gift that women have so often not been given, then that totally changes my my relationship with my creator.
Speaker 2:And also, we look at, like, single parents. Right? Mhmm. There's a lot of times where single parents have to fulfill both father and mother roles. And there's plenty of them out there that do that very successfully.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And you wouldn't call them weak because of that. Right. Because they fulfill more feminine roles and masculine roles, however it works out. It's just reflective of the way that God takes care of us.
Speaker 2:They're just taking care of needs.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah. I just this whole book opened my eyes to a lot of things because we grew up in such a conservative space and really often still find ourselves in such conservative spaces, even though we really try not to. It was just never presented to me that I could have attributes that God had. And I wonder what it would have been like to to be a man.
Speaker 1:You know, like that there's a part of me that wonders that. And just to be told that you look like God. That physically you look like God, that your attributes look like God's, that and and maybe it's not easier. I don't know. I'm sitting here and I see what I can see from here.
Speaker 1:But to me, it just seems like starting off like, starting the race 10 feet in front of everybody else.
Speaker 2:And I think that's something I'm hoping is gonna get better with time. Because, you know, back in the day, it's cultural. Right? Everything patriarchal culture passed down throughout time. And I'm hoping as we learn and we grow together that things get better.
Speaker 2:It doesn't look like in the next four years they will.
Speaker 1:No. I think it's gonna take some time.
Speaker 2:But I think it's like, we have to talk about it. Yeah. And we have to talk about it with other people, not just us. Mhmm. And just open up some conversations.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So on that lovely note, I really would recommend reading this book. Again, like, take a lot of time with it. Be very give yourself so much grace when you read this book because it's gonna take a lot out of you. But it's called Women and the Gender of God by Amy Peeleur. And I think I got it from Baker Book House, but you can get it on Amazon as well.
Speaker 1:Next week, so we'll be talking about some current events, some stuff that's going on, some TikToks Bree watches.
Speaker 2:I'm always on TikTok. Always on TikTok. You know what? Maybe we'll talk about some books that we're reading.
Speaker 1:Maybe that would be unwise.
Speaker 2:Would you guys like that?
Speaker 1:I'm on book 47 or 48, I think, for the year.
Speaker 2:I hate my book 48.
Speaker 1:I do nothing else. I work and I read books. And sometime well, I do a lot of driving also. Surprising amount of driving.
Speaker 2:I saw a YouTube video the other day where a girl was like, people always ask how I have time to read, but they never ask, like, how I have time to spend so much time on my phone. Exactly. And so she's like, I read for as long as my phone said I was on my phone each day. So, like, one day was three hours. One day was four hours.
Speaker 2:One day and so she just replaced being on her phone with reading. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Good for her. They say the average American spends, like, four and a half to five hours on their phone a day. Easily. Easily. And yeah.
Speaker 1:So, like, you've got time to do that.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Just pick up a book. I think it's hilarious when I look down at my phone, and I have, like, three missed texts that I haven't responded to. I'm like,
Speaker 1:So don't text Bree, boys and girls. Don't talk
Speaker 2:to me. I'm not in the business of communication.
Speaker 1:Alright. So prep yourself for next week for some TikToks, for some books, for some current events. Who knows? Whatever floats our boat.
Speaker 2:We'll just be chatting. Have a glass of wine. Oh, a glass of wine. We'll be chatting about things that are going on today. Okay.
Speaker 1:So look forward to that. We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 2:Bye. Love you. Bye.